Donald Trump’s drug price cuts set to impact global pharma, including India
Declaring an end to what he calls decades of price exploitation, US president says Americans will pay no more than lowest global drug price
US President Donald Trump has unfurled a dramatic new offensive against soaring prescription drug prices, a move poised to send tremors through global pharmaceutical markets — with India’s generics-led drug export industry watching closely from the front lines.
Declaring an end to what he called decades of price exploitation, Trump said Americans would soon pay no more than the lowest price charged anywhere in the world. “You’re going to get most-favoured-nation pricing,” he proclaimed, framing the policy as a long-overdue correction to a system that, in his words, forced US consumers to shoulder the world’s highest medicine costs.
The announcement, delivered in the presence of senior health and economic officials — including health and human services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, CMS administrator Mehmet Oz and FDA commissioner Marty Makary — was underscored by the attendance of top executives from the global pharmaceutical elite.
“For decades, Americans have been forced to pay the highest prices in the world,” Trump said, unveiling what he described as historic agreements with drugmakers to slash prices on major medicines. He claimed reductions ranging from “300, 400, 500, 600 and even 700 per cent,” a scale of cuts he portrayed as unprecedented.
Among those in the room were Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson, Novartis chief Vas Narasimhan, Genentech CEO Ashley Magargee, Gilead’s Dan O’Day, GSK boss Emma Walmsley, Merck CEO Robert Davies and Amgen executive vice president Peter Griffith — a roll call that underscored the global reach of the proposed overhaul.
Trump made clear that the policy would not rely on persuasion alone. Tariffs, he said, would be wielded as a lever to pressure foreign governments into aligning their drug prices with US expectations. “We would never be able to do this without the use of tariffs,” he asserted, adding that American drug prices would soon rank “among the lowest in the developed world”.
“So we will get the lowest price anywhere in the world,” Trump said, tying the pricing push to a broader drive to revive domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing. “They’re coming in and they’re building already,” he added, signalling a renewed emphasis on US-based production.
The announcement resonates far beyond Washington. India — one of the world’s largest producers of generic medicines and a critical supplier to the US market — stands at the heart of the unfolding story.
With Indian drug prices among the lowest globally and the American market central to its pharmaceutical exports, any US move toward international price benchmarking is being watched with intense interest by Indian drugmakers, aware that this bold policy shift could reshape the economics of the global medicine trade.
With IANS inputs